Slavery Reparations.
Discussion
Xaero said:
That woman makes Jamaica look like a backward thinking nation, something I never considered them to be before. They always just seemed like a really happy nation to me. Complete waste of time too calling for reparation, nearly all the countries in the would could do that to the UK if you think far enough backwards.
As could the natives of this country, who were invaded and taken as slaves by the Vikings, the Romans, and the Normans. Not to mention the Arabs who were the main agents of slavery for centuries (they have lots of oil money now, perhaps they would the best people to tap for cash?) and lets not forget various African tribes, who captured people from other villages and sold them as slaves. Some should read up on world history before making such claims.This highly selective buck stopping, which some seem to believe should only stop at the UK, when just about all other countries engaged in the practice at the time, is getting to be a bit tedious.
The Don of Croy said:
TEKNOPUG said:
That supposition is simply not true. The importance of the slave trade (inluding tobacco & sugar) to Britain's explosion of wealth and global economic, trading & military dominance cannot possibly be underestimated. Indeed, the Industrial Revolution would not even had occured without the emergence of the slave trade. Sure, money didn't not flow directly to the poor but the wealth created, made everything else that followed possible. It's akin to saying that because I don't work for a bank, I don't benefit from Britian's global finance dominance.
The Europe-wide famine of post Waterloo 1817 has nothing to do with the slave trade or wealth in the country - not sure how you have made that leap.
I like your understated style.The Europe-wide famine of post Waterloo 1817 has nothing to do with the slave trade or wealth in the country - not sure how you have made that leap.
Prior to the slave trade (and sugar plantations in the Windies) the UK had - at times - been pretty wealthy, iirc. Abraham Darby would have gone ahead with his experimentation without the slave trade - he may have found financial backing more difficult but to say - definitively - that it would never have happened sounds rash. We had a navy, we had organisational abilities, and we were ready to exploit opportunities.
Portugal apparently had a bigger slave trade. Where did it invest all that filthy lucre? And does Brazil ask for reparations (it may - I have no idea)?
I'd suggest there is an argument that because slaves had a value they were treated in some ways better than many British people, this was in the time of Irish Potato famine, clearing of the highlands, iron master in Wales, and starving in the newly crowded cities of England. I'd like to see comparative figures for things like starvation deaths, scurvy, typhoid, industrial accidents leading to mutilation, etc in the UK where labour was freely available and bought in on an as needed daily basis, as compared to among 'high valua' scarce slave in the colonies, where replacements had to be 'sourced' from the other side of the Atlantic.
I'm not saying slavery was in any way right but it was product of its time for most of the Western world. I am more concerned at the Economic slavery I have seen going on today in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
I'm not saying slavery was in any way right but it was product of its time for most of the Western world. I am more concerned at the Economic slavery I have seen going on today in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
REALIST123 said:
55palfers said:
I reckon we need to open a case against the Romans....
Exactly. Apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us? 
. 
Justices said:
Mr GrimNasty said:
Can we get counter-reparations for all the drugs, gang-related crime, piss taking use of the NHS, and all the bad music?
Bad music? Bob Marley? Prepare for a flood of claims for inflicting the Spice Girls on the entire planet then.Gerradi said:
There was a lot of it about.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade
Slavery was universal. It existed, and was supported by the aristocracy and, of course, that included the church uppers.
After the Norman invasion, the locals were turned into slaves. The Vikings had slaves.
There's no one group that is the sole offender, and no one group that was victimised.
Whilst we should not whitewash the horrendous acts that were committed in the past, the thing is that they were committed in the past. These acts had nothing to do with me.
Despite being a bit Irish by ancestry, I can't see any reason to hate the English/Scots for what they did in Ireland. Or blame them. The Highland Clearances were a response to an invasion of this country. A heavy handed and brutal one, but a response in line with the conduct of the time.
We see in Ireland today the fallout of historic blame. It happened: learn from history and try and ensure such terrible things won't happen again. But they will.
Terrible things were done during what I consider to be an unjustified (and illegal) war recently. If we were to be billed for the damage and injury, I think it might be a useful exercise as it might stop the next self-aggrandising religious nut trying to emulate a predecessor.
Not that, like the slave trade, I benefited from it. Just the reverse in fact.
irocfan said:
Justices said:
Mr GrimNasty said:
Can we get counter-reparations for all the drugs, gang-related crime, piss taking use of the NHS, and all the bad music?
Bad music? Bob Marley? Prepare for a flood of claims for inflicting the Spice Girls on the entire planet then.
tty thing to do), do they happen to all come from Jamaica? Or even their parents/grandparents? Reads to me like you talking about black people in general.
and Bob Marley is up there with the greats. We'll be listening to his music for generations to come. A couple were, as Irocfan puts it, meh!
Mr GrimNasty said:
Negative Creep said:
jmorgan said:
mybrainhurts said:
FFS...next, the Romans will be wanting to charge us tolls for the roads they built here.
What did they ever do for us eh?
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff